Flight of fantasy

Conor Broekhart Airman (Puffin) is a swashbuckling fantasy full of ingenuity characteristic of the creator of the 12-year-old boy genius Artemis Fowl.

Everyone wants to fly and that's what readers do as they zoom through the skies with Eoin Colfer's new flying hero, Conor Broekhart Airman (Puffin) is a swashbuckling fantasy full of ingenuity characteristic of the creator of the 12-year-old boy genius Artemis Fowl.

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Rather than imagining new worlds, Colfer chooses to reinvent the history of Ireland's Saltee Islands, a pair of small islands lying off its southern coast.

In the palace of Great Saltee in the 1890s, evil minds hatch a conspiracy to overthrow the good king.

Conor's life changes forever when he tries to expose the plot but gets branded as a traitor and is thrown into prison in the island of Little Saltee.

In between fighting for his life and mining for underwater diamonds, Conor - rumoured to have been born flying in a hot air balloon at the Paris world fair - embarks on a grand plan to take flight and escape his prison.